Hunter Patrol | Page 4

just let me ask the
questions; then I'll be sure of finding out what I don't know. For
instance, who won the war I was fighting in, before you grabbed me
and brought me here? The Commies?"
"No, the United Nations," Anthony told him. "At least, they were the
least exhausted when both sides decided to quit."
"Then what's this dictatorship.... The Guide? Extreme Rightist?"
"Walter, you'd better tell him," Gregory said.
* * * * *
"We damn near lost the war," the man in the black jacket and striped
trousers said, "but for once, we won the peace. The Soviet Bloc was
broken up--India, China, Indonesia, Mongolia, Russia, the Ukraine, all
the Satellite States. Most of them turned into little dictatorships, like
the Latin American countries after the liberation from Spain, but they
were personal, non-ideological, generally benevolent, dictatorships, the
kind that can grow into democracies, if they're given time."
"Capitalistic dictatorships, he means," the cadaverous man in the blue

jacket explained.
"Be quiet, Carl," Anthony told him. "Let's not confuse this with any
class-struggle stuff."
"Actually, the United Nations rules the world," Walter continued.
"What goes on in the Ukraine or Latvia or Manchuria is about
analogous to what went on under the old United States government in,
let's say, Tammany-ruled New York. But here's the catch. The UN is
ruled absolutely by one man."
"How could that happen? In my time, the UN had its functions so
subdivided and compartmented that it couldn't even run a war properly.
Our army commanders were making war by systematic disobedience."
"The charter was changed shortly after ... er, that is, after...." Walter
was fumbling for words.
"After my death." Benson finished politely. "Go on. Even with a
changed charter, how did one man get all the powers into his hands?"
"By sorcery!" black-coat-and-white-bands fairly shouted. "By the help
of his master, Satan!"
"You know, there are times when some such theory tempts me," Paula
said.
"He was a big moneybags," Carl said. "He bribed his way in. See, New
York was bombed flat. Where the old UN buildings were, it's still hot.
So The Guide donated a big tract of land outside St. Louis, built these
buildings--we're in the basement of one of them, right now, if you want
a good laugh--and before long, he had the whole organization eating
out of his hand. They just voted him into power, and the world into
slavery."
Benson looked around at the others, who were nodding in varying
degrees of agreement.

"Substantially, that's it. He managed to convince everybody of his
altruism, integrity and wisdom," Walter said. "It was almost
blasphemous to say anything against him. I really don't understand how
it happened...."
"Well, what's he been doing with his power?" Benson asked. "Wise
things, or stupid ones?"
"I could be general, and say that he has deprived all of us of our
political and other liberties. It is best to be specific," Anthony said.
"Gregory?"
"My own field--dimensional physics--hasn't been interfered with much,
yet. It's different in other fields. For instance, all research in sonics has
been arbitrarily stopped. So has a great deal of work in organic and
synthetic chemistry. Psychology is a madhouse of ... what was the old
word, licentiousness? No, lysenkoism. Medicine and surgery--well,
there's a huge program of compulsory sterilization, and another one of
eugenic marriage-control. And infants who don't conform to certain
physical standards don't survive. Neither do people who have
disfiguring accidents beyond the power of plastic surgery."
* * * * *
Paula spoke next. "My field is child welfare. Well, I'm going to show
you an audio-visual of an interesting ceremony in a Hindu village,
derived from the ancient custom of the suttee. It is the Hindu method of
conforming to The Guide's demand that only beautiful children be
allowed to grow to maturity."
The film was mercifully brief. Even in spite of the drums and gongs,
and the chanting of the crowd, Benson found out how loudly a newborn
infant can scream in a fire. The others looked as though they were
going to be sick; he doubted if he looked much better.
"Of course, we are a more practical and mechanical-minded people,
here and in Europe," Paula added, holding down her gorge by main
strength. "We have lethal-gas chambers that even Hitler would have

envied."
"I am a musician," Anthony said. "A composer. If Gregory thinks that
the sciences are controlled, he should try to write even the simplest
piece of music. The extent of censorship and control over all the arts,
and especially music, is incredible." He coughed slightly. "And I have
another motive, a more selfish one. I am approaching the compulsory
retirement age; I will soon be invited to go to one of the Havens. Even
though these Havens